


Deep Throat

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abduction, Episode Related, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:13:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3892516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When they stole him from her, she stole a car and a gun and stopped taking no for an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Throat

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: 1.02 "Deep Throat"  
> A/N: It's so hard not to rehash every little detail. Wow, this show was good.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this and no infringement is intended.

By the time Mulder asked her to meet him in a bar, away from the Bureau, before lunchtime, she was accustomed to him. She had acclimated to him like altitude; they breathed a rarefied and dusty air in their subterranean workspace. Coming into the office was a ritual now - presenting her badge, stepping through the scanner, enduring the whispers as she walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the lowest floor. She noticed smirks from people who smiled at her before, or didn't notice her at all. There was more than one way to gain visibility, it seemed.

Something had happened in Oregon. Something had happened in the woods, with trees all around, and rain in her eyes, and the grit of ash under her feet and in her pockets. She had been wet to the skin, adrenaline rasping through her, desperate to find Mulder, and there was a light. There was a light that ended the world. There was a light that soldered something in her to something in him, as she held onto his strong forearms like an anchor and gasped for breath. 

She and Mulder (or really, mostly Mulder, with her as his liaison to the other agents, or his handler) never received visitors in their office. When someone wanted Mulder's perspective, the two of them ascended. The bullpen smelled like coffee, not newspaper. It felt so large and so crowded compared to the grotto of their office. Scully lingered next to Mulder, or he lingered next to her, inches away from defensive. Away from the dim shelter of his hotel room, under the harsh fluorescent light of the bullpen, it wasn't the same, but she was still protective of him. She was aware that he was fully capable of defending himself, that he had been fending for himself for years before he answered her knock. He veered giddily between hangdog and outrageous, seeking the irritation of his peers. She stood silent, or chided him gently with her eyes, and puzzled that the others couldn't see the mirth in his half-smile. After he'd solved the puzzle, they were dismissed. Occasionally, another agent would touch her on the arm and say a simple "Thanks". She would nod. That was all the acknowledgement they got.

Skinner noticed, however, and in return for hiring out his insight, Mulder had earned them a trip to Idaho to search for a Colonel Budahas. The novelty of travel was short-lived. They came up hard against the limits of their imagined free rein, guided by some invisible hand. When she had dreamed of the FBI, she hadn't imagined a bug in her own phone, or lights in the sky above an Air Force base and a man taken out of his mind, or a summary patdown by agents of her own government. Her badge was not the shield she had imagined. 

She wondered what would have happened if she'd let him buy her a drink, but only for a moment. Their flirting glanced off the surface of their partnership, obliquely, obscuring the depths that already she could not sound. Full fathom five, she thought, and deepening daily. When they stole him from her, she stole a gun and a car and stopped taking no for an answer, possessed by a fury she could not explain. Her foot trembled on the gas pedal as she peeled away from the base, putting space between Mulder and his captors as he gazed out the window with dull, dazed eyes.

"Mulder," she said, reaching out to take his pulse as she drove.

"There was a light," he said, and his voice trailed off. The skin of his wrist was delicate under her fingertips as she sought to soothe her fears in the steady rhythm of his heart and the whirr of the tires carrying them away.

They left something behind. She knew it would not be the last time.


End file.
